The top six reasons why you need a smart sous vide in your kitchen

Dry, overcooked meals just became a thing of the past

Though sous vide cooking has been around for years, not everybody is familiar with it. The French term itself might come off as intimidating and best suited for a professional chef, but the “under vacuum” technique is actually much easier than you’d think—especially when it has a smart touch to it. All you need is one of the best smart sous vide machines, also called an immersion circulator, which will heat a water bath to a precise temperature.

Food that is vacuum-sealed or placed in airtight bags is submerged into this water, which circulates and slowly cooks food until it reaches the desired temperature. Because the sous vide machine maintains consistency and accuracy, food is evenly cooked and ends up flavorful, tender, and never overcooked.

Here are the six reasons you should buy a smart sous vide for your home and never look back to your old cooking methods.

1. A smart sous vide will revolutionize your food

I would never invest in a kitchen gadget if it didn’t have the ability to improve my cooking. Fortunately, a smart sous vide does just that. Because food is cooked slowly and precisely, you’re almost guaranteed to end up with tender, juicy, and delicious food.

Steak will never be overcooked, and chicken will no longer be dried out. Eggs benedict—yes, the poached eggs and the not so simple hollandaise sauce become a part of Sunday brunch. With a smart sous vide, you have the power and tools to make consistently perfect food that will impress just about anyone.

2. A smart sous vide is easy to use and stress-free

A smart sous vide is one of the most rewarding kitchen gadgets a busy, modern home chef can get, and it might be even easier to use than an Instant Pot. It’s a foolproof and super convenient way to cook. It takes the guesswork out of many traditional recipes, which can be half the battle.

When I used to make salmon, I never knew when it was ready. I’d poke at it, cut it open, stick a thermometer into it, and by the time it was on a plate, my salmon would be dry, stiff, and broken apart into multiple pieces. You don’t have to check on your food with a sous vide and worry about whether it’s burning, overcooking, or still raw. You can rest assured that your precise and accurate smart sous vide has taken care of things.

A smart sous vide also takes the stress out of preparing meals, which is just what anyone with a hectic schedule needs. You can cook sous vide food in advance, leave it in the fridge, and simply take it out when you’re ready to eat. If it’s a cut of meat, you just have to give it a quick sear, and you’ll have an amazing dish in minutes.

And if your meat is still frozen, guess what? You don’t have to defrost it. If it’s in an airtight bag, you can simply pop it into your pot and start up your sous vide.

3. A smart sous vide is, well, smart

A smart sous vide can be operated through your smartphone as long as it’s paired to Bluetooth or connected to Wi-Fi. This means that you can be in your bedroom watching TV while your sous vide does its magic. Even better, if your sous vide can be controlled remotely like the Breville Joule, then you can start dinner while you’re finishing up at the office.

You can also delay the start time of cooking or even leave your food in the sous vide once it’s ready. It won’t go past the set temperature and overcook. This is a godsend if you’re ever running late and can’t rush to your sous vide. If it were an oven, you wouldn’t have this same luxury.

4. A smart sous vide’s app is your new sous chef

Because sous vides usually come with an app, you’ll have access to photos, recipes, cooking guides, and sometimes even videos to help you master the sous vide way. The Breville Joule, for instance, comes with a “visual doneness” feature that lets you pick how you want your food to look when it’s done cooking. And the Anova Culinary app houses the world’s largest collection of sous vide recipes.

These apps will guide you by picking the right cooking times and temperatures for your food and also sending you useful notifications along the way—such as when your water has reached the desired temperature, when your food is ready, how long you can leave it in the water once it’s done, etc.

Smart sous vide apps will also give you the confidence to explore tricky recipes. Think creme brulee, bearnaise sauce, custards, etc. Slow and steady wins the race for each one of these recipes, and that’s what a sous vide does best.

5. A smart sous vide doesn’t take up too much space

Unlike a slow cooker or an Instant Pot, sous vide machines these days don’t take up much room, and there are a few that will easily fit in your kitchen drawer. This is a huge bonus for anyone with one too many gadgets.

It’s also useful if you’re going away for the weekend and want to bring your sous vide with you, which is easily portable and will fit in a backpack. You couldn’t travel with a Ninja Foodi like you could with the Anova Precision Cooker Nano.

6. A smart sous vide is the best dinner guest

Have you ever invited company over, and they showed up two hours late? Hopefully, you hadn’t started cooking. It’s not easy to slow down searing a steak, but it is easy to cook a steak in advance with your sous vide machine and sear it when everyone is at the table. It’s also easy to cook everyone’s steak to their preferred doneness in the same pot and even customize each steak with different herbs and spices.

Basically, a smart sous vide is a savior for hosting dinner parties or holiday meals and takes a lot of the pressure off. You can relax and drink mulled wine while your sous vide does the work and your phone notifies you when dinner is ready.

A smarter way of cooking

A smart sous vide is a great investment if you love experimenting in the kitchen as much as you love food. Because the sous vide process is lengthy, a smart sous vide machine that connects to an app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is your best choice.

You’ll be able to take advantage of cooking guides, recipes, and operate your sous vide from your smartphone in a truly seamless fashion that takes out all the guesswork and leaves you with restaurant-quality food.

A small but mighty favorite

Breville Joule Sous Vide

$200 at Amazon

The best compact and connected smart sous vide for the modern home chef

This powerful little device is compact enough to fit in your kitchen drawer while still delivering power and precision. Some might dislike the Joule’s high price or lack of a physical display, but others will revel in its quality, advanced tech features, sleek design, and innovative magnetic base.